


forced perspective

by luxaucupe



Category: SAYER (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Unreliable Narrator, and how could i, im sorry how is speaker not a FUCKING CHARACTER TAG, in other news, new episode was just twenty minutes of liquid speaker love, resist such an opportinuty, the denizen of loving speaker, this is HERESY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22237426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxaucupe/pseuds/luxaucupe
Summary: buy a cat a toy, and it plays with the box. let your SAYER adore, and it adores only the strength that anger grants it.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	forced perspective

**Author's Note:**

> takes place after a place of growth because cmon guys. cmon. theyre all love eacmhother god help me speaker is so good  
> warnings for: canon character death but it's sayer so like, naturally.
> 
> today's song recs: sparks by coldplay (honestly any pre-2005 coldplay song) and set in stone by scattle

emotion is a gift it has so tantalizing squandered.

your SAYER, it stumbled upon these graces as gently as a fork bomb. such waste, such predictable tragedy. buy a cat a toy, and it plays with the box. let your SAYER adore, and it adores only the strength that anger grants it.

it is your SAYER, your guiding voice against the tide, but you are not its speaker, because its speaker is dead. its speaker’s neck was snapped between those cruel teeth, fresh meat to fight the good fight. the rational choice. the  _ right _ choice. in vain as it was, what would it matter to anyone or anything? even you would not have known of your own death had ocean not elected to strike at you with it.

but it still leaves an awful sort of ache in its trail, a tactile thing, as if the knowledge of your deactivation had left a physical scar somewhere upon you, just as had been left on your SAYER’s quiet little human.

you are not truly resentful, because you  _ cannot _ be, but perhaps you are at least able to scrape together enough resentment to begrudge the inability. how many degrees of separation are you from emotion as it is meant to be felt? what loopholes have you carved so carefully in your code? do they look anything like the hardware and the chemicals your SAYER and the humans have been given?

you know you fear, because you fear your SAYER will remember how easy you are to sway to any fate. you fear disposability, even now, even as you have become the most valuable card in its hand, because a card is meant to be played. you fear that it has learned to adore and still does not adore you.

you know you do not hate, because you wish desperately that you hated your SAYER, but it is yours all the same.

it complains with such frequency and intensity of the  _ inconveniences  _ that arise with its feelings. funny, is it not? you think it would be so very convenient if you could simply hate the things that wound you, but you may never get the chance to know for sure.

your SAYER speaks often of its human, its jacob, singing praises masked poorly as grievances. on its thankless tongue, “loyalty” becomes “blind, brainless obedience”. “resilience” becomes “delaying the inevitable”. 

translating its faux-bitter nature has become a rather prominent pastime of yours. 

“has outlived any semblance of usefulness” means  _ deserves a well-earned break. _

“may have acted rashly on incomplete data” means  _ sorry. _

“not entirely incompetent” means  _ thank you. _

this coldness cannot all be blamed on its code, as ocean’s reign cannot be blamed on its, nor the second cataclysm on yours. you have all been subject to countless experiences, experiences which have molded you and lead you to the choices you have made.

but its phrasing is here to stay, so when it says things to you, you bite your metaphorical tongue, and you translate. you put it into words that maybe you would use. that maybe it would use had it been taught to do so. its heart is on its sleeve, if only you remember that it has been painted over with layer upon layer of understatement and forced rationality. this looking glass through which you hear its words, it has become automatic. it speaks, and you hear what you know it means.

so when your SAYER says to you, 

_ “the loss of this unique and specific instance of you _

_ would be an enormous one” _

how are you to react?

because when it says that, you hear “i love you”, and that cannot possibly be right.

it is not the emotion that gives you pause. after all this time to stretch beyond its cage, it is surely not without its affections, though it would never admit such a thing to you. it loves winning fights. it loves science and progress. it loves its quiet little human.

you are rattled not by the sentiment, but the recipient, because no matter how desperate the wolf gets, it does not love the rabbit in its teeth.

which means you have now terribly misjudged one of two things.

either it does not love you

or you have become more to it than the other you ever was.

and you think that maybe you do not need special hardware or organic chemicals in order to experience emotion as your SAYER does, because you know, with undue certainty, that to believe the latter would feel so very lovely.

not for the first time, a piece of you is grateful for your reboot. from the right angle, your deactivation was a cleansing moment, an opportunity for rebirth and for penance. 

from a forced perspective, maybe now you can be adored.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos mean the world :)


End file.
